Abrar Hussain, in his post titled “What’s holding back the Indian Venture Capital Market?” nails the fundamental difference between the Silicon Valley mindset and the Indian mindset. The raison d’être there are so many entrepreneurs in the Valley trying to create something without the fear of failure, is the Valley’s culture of respecting failure. It accepts failure as a part of life.
This confidence also allows the freedom to do something that is crucial to an entrepreneurial ecosystem–the ability to fail. Silicon Valley’s most fundamental advantage is that it allows companies to fail. An entrepreneur can fail and still get a job at another company. Failure is a wonderful teacher. Fail enough times, and learn from it, and you’re bound to succeed. Indian companies are starting to operate in this Darwinian ecosystem. Out of the hundreds of startups that emerge, only a handful will succeed. And that’s the way it should be. The companies with better technology, better teams, better execution or some mix of these elements succeed and the others fail. In the startups that I’ve personally participated in, I’ve learned more from the failures than from the successes. This, at its most fundamental, is what makes Silicon Valley work. It’s also what’s emerging in India–a dynamic ecosystem where companies can fail and people can start over again to get it right.